


Soundtrack

by Cards_Slash



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6540517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling in love with Altair had its own soundtrack: usually embarrassing, never unique.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soundtrack

**Author's Note:**

> Written as an intermission to Please Practice Fire Safety, the prompt:  
> AltMal. Altair has this annoying habit of constantly changing Malik's boring default ringtone to personalized ones without telling him. The one day he decides to tell him something (maybe a confession if they're not together yet or a marriage proposal if they are or any other kind of happy, ridiculously sappy thing) and, of course, since he's telling him over the phone he changes the ringtone to something appropriate to the occasion.
> 
> all links lead to youtube.

They met on the bus set to the tune [Chumbawamba](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGc) getting knocked down (but getting up again). When Altair was skin over knobby bones and the two of them were hunched-shoulder outcasts sitting at the front of the bus quietly waiting for puberty to finish torturing them.

\--

After school, in Malik’s bedroom with his navy blue sheets and his precise cornered-pillow cases, they were shoulder to shoulder with laps full of math problems they had yet to solve. Altair had pink cheeks when he was biting his lip to keep from bursting into uproarious laughter. 

Mother was downstairs (not being judgmental, perhaps) and Kadar was wherever he went when he ceased to annoy Malik. Altair had closed the door as far as it could be closed because he had brought his very favorite CD in all the world to share with Malik and he was embarrassed like pink-spotty-freckles on his cheeks as he extracted sincere promises not to laugh (and Malik had regrets, now). 

“Well,” Malik said. He was searching for _anything_ to say that wouldn’t break his promise to be rude. Failing to come up with anything that adequate addressed how they had come to be listening to [Spice Girls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wfpXI5PKlw) on volume eleven, Malik followed up the start of the sentence with, “what did you get for number five?”

Altair burst into laughter so sudden and loud it knocked him off the bed and had him rolling on the ground with his arms around his ribs, crying big-fat-tears of hilarity as Malik got up and turned the music off. When he finally stopped, Altair was on the ground, looking up at him with his bright-red-face, saying, “but I do love them. I knew you wouldn’t.”

\--

Then it was Maria Thorpe with her skeleton face and her black-black hair carrying her Backstreet Boys purse dangling off her elbow in a way that Malik thought (viciously, and often) would be the worst sort of embarrassment for her when she was actually a woman. She appeared from ‘across the pond’ with her pretty accent and a disastrous love affair with boy bands. 

Altair fell in love with her on the spot, filling their lives with nothing but chatter about Maria-this and Maria-that laced in and out through a constant stream of ‘[Quit Playing Games with my Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug88HO2mg44)’ that left Malik with the deep, deep desire to murder him almost every minute of the day.

\--

More annoying that Altair’s willingness to listen to Britney Spears on repeat for nine hours out of the day, his tendency to abuse his ears with whatever his ‘girlfriend’ was listening to, and his unfortunate habit of bursting into tune mid-chorus without any warning was the fact that he genuinely liked the stupid fucking [Smash Mouth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_jWHffIx5E) song. 

“You’re _not_ an all-star!” Malik shouted at him after twenty-nine minutes of listening to the stupid jerk humming the song under his breath while they were stuck in traffic on a bus that smelled like gasoline and teenage-sweat. “You’ve never even played a sport. Just _shut up_!” He didn’t even wait to hear Altair’s rebuttal but left him standing there with his mouth open and a bus full of witnesses catcalling after them.

\--

He lost track of Altair across a melody of N*Sync songs. Memory was a foggy kind of thing, tying up Kadar’s unfortunate love of everything music-video related and Altair’s ascension to some teenage godhood throne. The little bastard had been a chubby, big-headed nerd since kindergarten, taking up outcast status to Malik’s immediate left since they were paired up for a first-grade science project. His obnoxious adoration of poor music choices had been a constant in Malik’s life since he had punched him in second grade for singing ‘this is the song that never ends’ on a constant loop for two whole days.

There was no figuring out where the chorus of [Bye Bye Bye](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo-KmOd3i7s) came from: Altair’s departure or Kadar’s willingness to watch any trash. Either way, it was firmly rooted in Malik’s memory as _the song_ and the longer, harder and more he hated it the more rooted it became.

\--

Malik might have spent the rest of his life living on in perpetual denial if he hadn’t been stuck doing behind-the-scenes drama-department bullshit just for the sake of needing to be part of a club for his college application. He was sitting with his back against some giant canvas black drop (holding it up because he wasn’t even paying attention to why) thinking viciously unfair thoughts about how he hated drama kids. 

Maria (fucking) Thorpe had talked her (golden boy)friend into auditioning for the school musical based on the fact that (they were the most popular kids in school) he could sing in shower. By misfortune or poor fate, Altair had secured a supporting role in the musical. Malik spent hours of his life listening to Altair rehearse the stupid play (that he had yet to see, by virtue of being nothing more than part of the stage). 

But it was after school on a Thursday after the stage crew set up the set and before the actors bothered to show up, Altair was sitting on the edge of the stage with his feet kicking in the orchestra pit, singing Uncle Kracker to himself. 

Malik’s masturbatory fantasies were set to chorus of ‘[follow me everything is alright, I’ll be the one to tuck you in at night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gjx-ZQuQ_Y)’. 

\--

But everyone was still singing [Lady Marmalade](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQa7SvVCdZk) at finals time, feeling clever and horny and victorious. 

\--

Altair showed up at his door around the time Avril Lavigne took over the world, and there was no telling if he was humming [It’s Complicated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwJ1SmYd12s) under his breath or trying to remember the words of whatever Eminem song had all the defiant kids working themselves up into a fit of rage. (It was hard telling, Malik had given up on trying to keep track of anything but his grade point average.) 

“Why don’t we ever hang out anymore?” was Altair at seventeen. He was slim and tall and pretty with his jaw finally starting to take shape and his lips bitten pink by peeling skin. With his hands in his pockets of his perpetual hoodie, he looked every much the part of those hooligans that Watson the neighbor lady kept yelling about riding their skateboards down the sidewalks. “What happened there?”

Malik opened the door and shrugged his shoulders both at the same time. 

Altair accepted the invitation but stood like a stranger in the kitchen, looking lost about what he was allowed to touch. “I found my Spice Girls CD,” he said.

Malik rolled his eyes to that, “and you thought of me?”

“Yeah,” Altair said. “I always think of you when I hear it.” Then he shrugged his shoulders with his lips doing a slant across his chin, he was looking at the cabinets that hadn’t changed in ten years like he’d never seen them before. “Maria had decided that all popular music is trash. She listens to The Who or something. Maybe Mozart, one of those old dead guys. Why aren’t we friends anymore?”

“Because you left,” Malik said. “I’m still here.”

“I didn’t leave,” Altair said (just as quick as anything. “You just stopped showing up.”

“I’m gay,” Malik said. Like one had anything to do with the other. (But it did.) 

Altair was stunned into loose-faced-silence. Then he cleared his throat and scrunched up his eyebrows, his mouth was working out the words they wanted to say and the best he managed is, “all the time?”

“Yes.”

Then he was nodding like he was thinking it through and it didn’t matter what conclusion he arrived at because Mother was coming in the front door with Kadar (the overgrown pest) and groceries and blunt-disapproving faces to find a _boy_ in the kitchen with her (gay) son. Altair took the exit that was provided him and ran for his life.

\--

Malik slid through his last year in high school with his headphones full of anger, caught between [Cry Me a River](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DksSPZTZES0) and Coldplay, working out what to do with his life. He emerged (now and again) to find Kadar watching [Crazy In Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViwtNLUqkMY) like his life depended on seeing it for the one hundredth time (that day). 

\--

When given the chance to _get the fuck out_ , Malik went so far away they played music he’d never heard. He grew up in college, saturated in coffee-shop hipsters. His ears grew heavy and slow on long ballads and wilting voices.

He was sophisticated, surrounded by Arabica coffee beans that soaked into his skin and his clothes until he was a walking advertisement for the Starbucks on the corner. He sat in the front of the class, listening to everything the professor said, missing only the hipster glasses to make his place in the world known.

\--

He had an affair set to [Gnarls Barkley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd2B6SjMh_w) and [James Blunt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oofSnsGkops), caught between Crazy and (You’re) Beautiful. The whole thing was a powder keg of stupid choices, one after another building themselves up to fall over in a massive explosion. 

But Malik was too-fucking-smart and too fucking old to worry about college boys singing [Sexyback](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gOHvDP_vCs) at girls with loose buttons to bother himself worrying about the morality (or wisdom) of fucking a closeted college professor. He didn’t question anything with his clothes off but how long they could steal before someone would notice.

It went on for months, one long cry of victory, and it ended with Mr. Professor’s pretty wife red-faced and violent, slapping him across the face in front of a seminar of half-asleep college kids all gagging to know the story behind it.

\--

Malik moved home when Lady Gaga was taking over the planet. He took up the space in his old bedroom set to a mixed-tape-of Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Katy Perry. The radio in his brother’s room (still occupied, not re-occupied) a constant invasion of noise blaring whatever playlist Kadar had programmed into his MP3 player to do his endless pile of homework to.

He got a stupid job working at the photo department of a local pharmacy while he tried to find something to do with his useless history degree (and he worked off the stalled inertia of his latest and most spectacular failed relationship).

\--

Altair showed up during an Alicia Keys song (two years old at that point), waiting in line with cell-phone-addict patience, ignoring the woman who insisted they failed to apply her expired coupon. Malik gave her up for lost and called the manager to explain to her (in little words) what he’d already said. They argued for six-more-minutes and she left with a great deal (courtesy of being in inconsolable bitch) making way for Altair to step back into his life in time with [(no one, no one no one).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rywUS-ohqeE)

“Malik?” he said like he had any right to smile the way he did. Time (and distance, and _sun_ ) had done miraculous things to Altair. He wasn’t stretched out of shape but filled out and fit. He was _glowing_ in a tight T-shirt and big hands. “How long has it been?”

“A while.”

But Altair’s whole face flinched like he’d counted-the-minutes but the words never made it past his mouth. He just nodded his head and knocked his smile down to politely-interested. He rubbed his palm against his jeans, motioning toward the store like whatever he meant to do was in that direction. “I was sent to pick up for—uh, Maria Thorpe.”

Of course he was. “Yeah,” Malik said. He dug the order out and rang him up. They traded dollar bills and yellow envelopes filled with pretty-colored-photos of little kids in little league outfits playing tee ball out behind Fitzhugh Elementary. 

\--

Malik was set to live his life in celibacy (and regret); resolved to purge himself of caffeine addictions and the ever-elusive-hipster-god of music. He settled into overplayed radio hits and quiet circles to-and-from work. 

That must have been why he was barely escaping Maroon 5 stalking him through the radio (always Maroon 5) only to walk face-first into Altair doing a terrible job looking casual and unassuming outside of a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. There was no mistaking the shape of his smile as intention as soon as he saw Malik, and there was no way to escape him (not when he waited so long) so they were awkward pinballs, waiting for their turn, Altair said, “hey so I had a huge crush on you when we were kids but my parents think homosexuality is a huge sin and that fucked me up for the last ten years but I’m working through it.”

Bluntness, Malik remembered, was Altair’s only method of communication. “so you’re gay?”

“Yes,” Altair said.

“All the time?” 

For a minute, like the awful drag of toddler shoes across cement and the unsubtle way they had to shift to get out of the path of the mother and her two children (probably set to scream the entire time they were inside), Malik was sure the humor (if that the word for it) was lost on Altair.

But his smile was embarrassed like pink freckles and his nod was an acknowledgement of the memory. “Yeah,” he said. He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, “so I’ve got two kids. Sometimes. They’re usually with Maria. Anyway, want to get something to eat after work?”

\--

They traded cell phone numbers and met up for early-bird specials at a hamburger and fries place. Altair filled him in on everything he’d missed, from finding a relative sense of peace at showing Maria off to his folks, to college and jobs and moving out. He regaled Malik with stories of his preschool sons until they were laughing over crumbs.

\--

Malik was starved for touch and Altair was _delicious_. They managed a respectable two-and-an-intent for a third date before they ended up naked in Altair’s room. The had sex to the through-the-walls-sound of KeSha wailing about her oral hygiene habits. 

\--

Altair fell in love with Adele far faster than he fell in love with Malik. He was singing every song in the shower, waking him up before the alarm every fucking day like he _wanted_ Malik to hate her more than he’d ever hated any music in his life.

\--

But it was Maroon 5 on his phone, ringing before work (Moves like Jagger). Altair (over the phone) saying, “hey I forgot to ask you to grab something the boys could drink on your way home.” (Altair said ‘home’ to mean his apartment and not the place where most of Malik’ stuff took up space in his Mother’s house.) 

“Did you change my ringtone?”

“Of course I did,” Altair said.

“Why?” Malik was looking-left toward the manager’s door, trying to squeeze a far longer conversation into a short space. “Never mind, tell me later, what is the little one allergic to?” 

“Red dye,” Altair said. “Love you.” 

\--

They grew up like that, with Altair rolling his eyes over Mumford and Sons (that, according to him, ruined the world). 

Malik’s ringtone was a constant embarrassment, playing Gwen Stefani (Hollaback Girl) and Madonna (Like a Virgin) interspersed with classics like Queen and Twisted Sister (which Malik had not even realized was an actual band until it very suddenly showed up on his phone).

Long after he’d given up explaining it to anyone, Britney Spears was singing about threesomes while Kadar was helping him pack the rest of his stuff to finish the inevitable move to that house Altair had been talking him into renting together for the past three months. 

“Do you have threesomes?” Kadar asked. “Like, are the songs relevant? I just want to know because you had that one song about whips and chains around the same time you started getting the weird sex bruises.”

Malik rolled his eyes and grabbed the phone, “are you going to ask me for a threesome?”

Altair laughed so hard he hung up the phone and called him back twenty seconds later, saying, “no. No I wasn’t going to but now I’m thinking about who we could possibly invite.”

“No,” Malik said.

“Rauf?”

“What? No. He’s ten years older than us.” 

Kadar was looking sideways at him from where he was fitting out of date textbooks into a plastic tote. Mother was somewhere downstairs consoling herself about having her son move out (for the second time) over a cup of tea and cell-phone-solitaire. 

“Didn’t you have an affair with a professor that was married and sixteen years older than—” 

Malik hung up on him. “No,” he said to Kadar, “I don’t think the songs mean anything.”

\--

But it was Jet when Altair was angry at him, the resounding condemnation of ([Cold Hard Bitch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9dbRXJbMWs)) to remind everyone how he felt.

It was [M. Ward](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIqH2gm5XAs) singing sweet love songs to him when things were perfect.

Lady Gaga was Born This Way when Malik went for a series of interviews looking to get a job that put his degree to work. The calls came between scheduled times when Altair was sitting at some desk (at his own job) offering annoying but heartfelt reassurances.

\--

Maria’s ringtone was Single Ladies. Her number and her song sneaking their way onto his phone after dark and before morning when it became clear that the three of them would have to become a functional family unit sooner or later. 

\--

The boys went to school and their ringtone was [Pink Floyd](https://youtu.be/YR5ApYxkU-U). Malik was working of his new-employee status when it rang for the first time, perking up to life from where he’d slid it into his pocket (and forgot it). The song was unfamiliar enough to him that he didn’t think it was coming from him until the next-guy-over said, “is that your phone?”

Malik had to leave early to pick up little boys with sore throats. And ‘Singing in the Rain’ was Altair interrupting their brief store run for popsicles with an abrupt parent panic about how he’d missed a call from the school but they said the boys had already been signed out.

\--

And in 2016, almost twenty years after some stupid boy all skin-over-bones and bright-pink-giggles had brought over his favorite CD to share, Malik’s phone was singing ‘Spice up Your Life’ at him in the middle of a company picnic (that Altair had not been able to attend due to reasons that remained unclear).

Malik was all set to ignore the bastard, his song and the stupid memory that accompanied it but he slid his thumb toward the green phone and not the red one and lifted it up to press to his ear. “I hope you’re dying.”

“Rude,” Altair said. “Actually, turn around.” 

Malik rolled his eyes (where it could not be seen) and turned around to find Altair standing there with his two boys (growing far too tall in the year and a half since they’d moved in full time) all of them looking out of place in nice suits at a casual affair. Altair dropped his phone away from his face and held out his hand. 

“I cannot believe you’re doing this here,” Malik said (barely above a whisper) right before Altair’s fist uncurled to show the gold band in his palm. He was shaking his head (thinking about _twenty fucking years_ ) while Sef was pressing a hand to his mouth and Darim was trying very hard not to care about anything. 

“Please?” Altair asked. When Malik didn’t answer him (quickly) he added, “pretty please?”

Malik took the ring to uproarious applause (sudden and invasive despite the public setting) and shook his head the whole time he put the ring on his finger. “I cannot believe you. I can’t. I cannot believe you.”

Altair kissed him like it was the first time all-over-again. Both of his arm around Malik like he’d never shaken the fear he’d lose him. His face was cracked in a smile, pleased-and-clever-and-proud.

**Author's Note:**

> so there were too many songs to link them all. If you want to know about a specific one I didn't link, feel free to ask in comments.


End file.
